


There's a reason bedrock isn't meant to be broken

by goosebxrry



Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Crying, First Kiss (between them), Fluff and Angst, Gentle Kissing, Hermitcraft Big Base Swap, Hurt/Comfort, I think?, M/M, Panic Attacks, Temporary Character Death, Watcher!Grian, dont ship real people! minecraft personas only, is there a proper order to do the relationship tags in? who knows, these tags are a mess i keep going back to add new ones hjbkdsfj, winged grian my beloved. he has wings for like half the fic lol, your honour theyre in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:41:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29609568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goosebxrry/pseuds/goosebxrry
Summary: Grian's getting a nice tour of his new base when things go terribly wrong— but at least he and Zedaph are there for each other.(aka, fluff and hurt/comfort gridaph because they did a collab and i've been brain full many thoughts ever since)
Relationships: Grian/Zedaph, Gridaph, Zedaph/Grian
Comments: 6
Kudos: 111





	There's a reason bedrock isn't meant to be broken

**Author's Note:**

> !!! i return to ao3 after my little unintentional break with gridaph for y'all's reading enjoyment :]
> 
> man just. them <33333\. i've rewatched the collab like 3 times jhbsksfdj their dynamic is so good and fun to watch i was smiling the whole time :]
> 
> anyway! minecraft personas only as always, and enjoy!

"Welcome to your new home!" Zedaph shouted as he flew through the redstone door on the roof of the Cave of Contraptions, with Grian close behind him. HCBBS had ended, and at first Grian was very upset about loosing his mansion-- but now, he had to admit, it was going to be fun to get to live in Zedaph's base. (…no, _his_ base. That would take some getting used to.)

Grian landed on the ground beside the base's previous owner, adjusting to the cold air of the cave with a shiver (no wonder Zed wore that cardigan everywhere, Grian felt lucky to already be wearing his sweater) and looking around. His eyes must've gotten pretty wide because Zed giggled beside him (which, Grian was reminded, was the _most_ _wonderful_ sound in all the world) and he said, "You like it?"

It felt like being in the centre of a Rube Goldberg machine.

"It's— of course I do, it's incredible!" He exclaimed, spinning in a slow circle to better take in the views. Most of the builds were stationary, but a few moving things caught his eyes— a minecart drove past them on a rail, the water in a handmade fountain was bubbling quietly nearby, he could hear more water rushing in the aquarium that was built on the far side of the cavern (as well as pistons from that general direction, occasionally— he'd have to check that out later) and bees buzzing from he could see them all in their little glass enclosure on the other end of the cavern.

"You want me to show you around?" He asked, and Grian nodded excitedly. Zed reached for his hand to lead him through the base to the first contraption he decided to show off (Grian hoped to Void that he didn't see how his face lit up to a bright red, and that he couldn't hear his heart threatening to break his ribcage from how fast it was beating. That all-too-familiar warm feeling blossomed in his chest like it always did when Zed was around, and he gingerly held the hand back.)

By the time he'd stuttered out a verbal agreement, Zed was already dragging him across the cave to his 'com-brew-tor' and babbling about redstone Grian had no hope of understanding. He listened nevertheless— admittedly, if he figured out how to make it work, it would be nice to not have to buy potions. Maybe he'd actually start to use them sometimes.

Midway through a sentence about how cool it looked when he activated the mechanism, he cut off to grab Grian's other hand in a squeezing hold of obvious excitement, crouching slightly in front of him as his eyes lit up (and _void,_ did he look cute.) "—or, I could just show you!" And he ran off in the direction of the first buttons, explaining how they worked. Grian chased after him.

"What kind of potion do you want?"

Grian's face was _burning_ with how flustered he was.

"Fire resistance!" He blurted out, a little louder than intended. Zedaph jumped a little, and he began mentally berating himself for scaring him, but he was just given a friendly pat on the back and a lighthearted comment about how Zed liked his enthusiasm. He smiled a little at the show of kindness.

Zed took him through the process of making a potion and Grian did his best to absorb information. He'd never forgive himself if he broke Zed's machines; it was obvious Zed put hard work and care into everything he'd built here, it would shatter Grian if he accidentally destroyed something— whether Zed could just easily rebuild it or not.

Grian was, as usual with Zedaph's contraptions, amazed with every aspect of the com-brew-tor. The timing and momentum had to be _just right_ every time for it to work and for the items to actually fall in the hopper instead of the ground, and Zed had nailed it and _still_ managed to make the whole contraption look really nice and aesthetic. He was thinking that over, wondering how much trial and error had gone into this, when there was suddenly a potion at his lips and he choked a little on the thick liquid— not because it tasted bad, it tasted like every fire resistance potion he'd ever had; a little spicy, a little tangy —but more due to the fact that not only had Zed stepped closer, but he was the one pressing the lip of the bottle to Grian's mouth, _feeding him._

He coughed, pulling away, and Zed made a worried expression. "Does it taste weird?"

"No, no, I just didn't expect it to be done already," He replied quickly, and his brain further short-circuited when Zed used his sleeve to wipe the remaining potion from his lips. (Some part of his unruly mind wished that Zed had _kissed_ the leftover potion from his lips, but he instantly shut that train of thought down. He wasn't going there. Zedaph didn't like him like that, by thinking those things he was only making accepting that fact harder for himself.)

"Oh, my bad," Zedaph apologized, and he finished the potion off himself. Grian let his frazzled brain catch up to the situation as Zed asked him if he was ready to move to the next contraption and he replied with a 'yes'. Grian was shown a few other things— Zedaph's very complicated but nevertheless impressive way of getting water buckets, a jump-powered furnace that he would definitely never be using due to its incredible inefficiency, and an interesting-looking bed design that actually woke you up on the good or the bad side of the bed in the morning.

He accidentally set his spawn when feeling the material of the sheets from curiosity of what they were made of, and Zedaph giggled. "I'm glad you're making yourself at home, Gri," He teased, and Grian knew he was blushing from the use of the nickname alone. He hoped it wasn't noticeable.

They walked past a very hard to miss yellow and black bordered hole in the ground with a trapdoor labelled the "Bumless Pit", and he paused.

"Over this way is the— oh, be very careful with that, it's a void hole,"

He flicked the lever jumped in to land on a terracotta block, and Zedaph made a noise of panic from behind him, rushing forward and offering his hand to help Grian climb out of the two block deep hole. He didn't take the help that Zed offered, stomping lightly on the floor (which he _knew_ wasn't a good idea— but he had rockets! and an elytra! he'd be fine no matter what happened.) "Y-You really should get out of there, I don't want you dying. It takes you to the void." Zedaph stuttered.

"No it doesn't," Grian blinked up at him, gesturing to the floor.

"It will if you press that red button," He continued, discomfort evident in his voice as he gently pulled at Grian's sleeve to urge him to get out of the dangerous spot before continuing the conversation. Grian was stubborn though— he wanted to see how it really worked. You couldn't break the bedrock in the Overworld, Zed would have to have some confusing contraption that led into a nether portal or something. "What red button?"

Zed's eyes momentarily darted up to look somewhere just behind him, and he turned around, immediately hitting the first button he saw. Zedaph shrieked as the floor was pulled away from beneath him, and suddenly, he was falling. There wasn't a portal or a redstone machine beneath him. There was a hole in the bedrock.

"Oh— _oh,_ there is!" He exclaimed, fumbling with a rocket to propel himself out. Zedaph was waiting beside the hole with a panicked expression, and Grian almost reached him— then his elytra got snagged on a part of the stone tunnel and he lost his momentum all at once, and this time when he fell, he truly was _falling._

He yelped as his shoulder hit the wall— it was rather cramped and he was finding it hard to turn himself back around —and suddenly Grian was falling side-first into the Void, spinning slightly and properly disorienting himself. The bedrock fell away behind him, leaving him in a space of pure nothingness; he heard Zedaph screaming something, but everything sounded… distant. Sound blurred away and all that remained was the sound of wind, whipping at him, cutting his skin with debris it carried and sending a chill down his spine despite his sweater.

…it was cold.

The uncomfortable brightness hurt his eyes and the bedrock above him disappeared from view completely, making up and down feel identical. He tried to use another rocket, but his elytra was flapping uselessly behind him— he grabbed at it to take a look, bringing some of the material forward, only to discover a jagged rip that split it in half. That would explain why it wasn't working.

There was nothing he could do, now. He let himself go limp.

This wasn't Grian's first experience with the void. Far from it, actually— he'd dealt with it quite a few times, most notably in the awful period he tried his best not to think about between Evo and Hermitcraft, stuck in the 'world' between worlds, back when he was a Watcher. He hadn't gone by Grian then, so most of the hermits (excluding Mumbo) had no clue what he'd been through even if they _had_ heard of 'Xelqua'— but nevertheless, no matter what the name he'd gone by was, that had been him and he remembered it all too clearly. The effects of it still lasted _._ The void around him was getting darker.

Zedaph had been upset by him falling, obviously, and he knew why. For any normal player, falling in the void did more than just kill you. It was a source of permadeath.

(He wouldn't die permanently to it, thankfully, being a rare exception to the game's code; he would respawn like any other death would cause him to. Voidkind and Enderkind would't die permanently to the void either and, despite technically being neither of those things, the Watchers had done a fine job of rewriting his code to protect him in their inhospitable home back when he lived among them— the void itself. It had been a rather dark existence in the deep void of the End, without any natural light. Even torches barely glowed, it was like the void ate the illumination and left him with the scraps and leftovers.)

Grian shivered and, despite not wanting to go through the familiar metamorphosis of sorts that usually happened right about now as some involuntary protective measure (not that it did anything except change his physical appearance, it had just been a byproduct of Watchers' work) he could feel himself changing. His vision blurred for a moment as his irises changed from their natural blue to a piercing neon purple, his dull lavender and plum coloured freckles glowed brighter until they were in a similar state to the colour of his eyes and, most noticeably, he could feel his wings reappearing, tearing at the seams of his sweater when they were too big to be contained by it.

The last thing he wanted was for the other hermits to see him like this.

…he wasn't getting much of a choice though, it seemed.

**Grian fell out of the world**

**▽**

Zedaph was in shock. No, actually, that was an _extreme_ understatement; he'd just watched his friend die, and now Grian was gone forever and his brain _really_ didn't want to process that. His communicator buzzed with the death message, then with the spam of frantic messages from other hermits as they read the way he'd died, but he didn't pick it up. All he could do was stare at the tiny light at the end of the tunnel where Grian had disappeared to, getting smaller and smaller until he faded into the distance, and cry. The hiccupy, can't get enough air, eyes hurting from the sheer amount of tears welling up in them kind of cry.

Grian was gone.

_Grian was gone._

**_Grian was gone._ **

There was a pained wheezing sound from somewhere behind him that echoed through the cave of contraptions, but Zedaph assumed it must've been a minecart or something— he couldn't get himself to turn around, he felt frozen. Zed roughly dragged his sleeve over his eyes with a broken sob, curling in on himself.

Then he heard footsteps coming towards him and jumped, panic spiking in his chest.

Then the person— wait, not just anyone, _how was Grian here —_ stumbled to a halt as he crouched down beside him, immediately pulling Zedaph into a tight embrace and wrapping his wings (since when did he have _wings?!)_ around them to block out the rest of the cave, pulling them closer together. Zedaph whimpered as he pressed his face Grian's chest, confused beyond belief but clinging onto him nevertheless, his breathing still coming in terrified shallow gasps occasionally broken up by muffled sobbing sounds. Grian's grip on him was gentle but strong, the pressure of the hug calming, and a hand gently traced a circle into his back.

"Deep breaths, Zed," Grian said softly into his hair. He could hear Grian's heartbeat, faster than it probably should've been, but it very much there, a reminder that he was alive _. Somehow._ "Try to match my breathing, okay?" Grian asked, and he took an exaggeratedly deep breath for Zed's sake. Zedaph did his best to copy, not daring to try and ask any questions about… everything, right now. He needed to get his breathing under control first, at least.

(Grian's initial plan had been to take a moment to make his wings go away and the rest of his appearance revert to normal, but when he heard Zed sobbing, saw him staring down the Bumless Pit with that absolutely shattered expression, he couldn't convince himself to do anything but immediately rush over to comfort him. A similar situation had happened once with Mumbo while they'd been endbusting together in a server outside of Hermitcraft, he knew it was terrifying to watch your friend die and not expect them to return. Mumbo still had nightmares occasionally, he'd show up at Grian's base at two in the morning to see him in person, make sure he was really there and alive. Grian never minded.)

"Good, good," Grian praised quietly when Zedaph's breathing slowed to a more reasonable pace. He dug his fingernails into Grian's back, almost as though he was afraid that the builder would disappear any moment now, that this was some incredible glitch but that the game would catch up to itself and kill him for real. It wasn't that irrational of a fear, to be fair; Grian was, by all laws of Minecraft, supposed to be gone. _Properly_ gone. "Try to keep breathing like that, you can do it. It's okay, I'm okay, I'm here."

"But h-how?"

Grian hesitated, his voice lowering. "I… I'll explain later."

Zedaph didn't reply, just keeping his face firmly pressed to Grian's shirt and feeling the gentle rise and fall of his chest, the signals that the man was living. He didn't talk to Grian much, only interacting for the occasional (wonderful) conversation or event, but he _wanted_ to. He wanted to get to know him, he wanted to be his friend, he wanted them to be closer— frankly, Zed couldn't imagine a Hermitcraft without Grian in it now that he'd joined.

He picked up on his name being spoken and realized Grian was talking.

"…so so sorry, Zedaph, I didn't mean to scare you, I wasn't thinking— please don't let them take me back, I'm sorry," He was whispering on repeat, rocking gently back and forth in a manner Zedaph wasn't so sure was in an attempt to comfort him anymore, and he sat up to see Grian's face despite how comfortable and calming it was being held against his chest. Unsurprisingly, he was crying.

"Grian, hey, hey, hey," He gently thumbed away the other's tears, getting Grian's attention, cupping his face with a gentleness one only ever used when holding something that was precious to them, like a gift from someone special… or something they loved. Some _one_ they loved."It's fine, you're— we're okay. Nothing happened, it was an accident, you didn't realize you wouldn't be able to fly out—"

"I could've not respawned," Grian cut in, his voice breaking into a sob. He hadn't gone near the void in over a year, afraid to be forcibly dragged from this new world, once again without even being able to say goodbye (he hadn't killed an ender dragon since his last moments in Evo, and there was reason for that). He didn't want to relive anything that he'd gone through again, he didn't want the Watchers to find him. He wasn't ready to leave Hermitcraft. "They could've taken me, I never would've returned,"

"—but you did return. You're safe here."

Grian went quiet, wings dropping a little so their upper bodies were in open air instead of being completely shielded by the soft-looking feathers, his chest shaking with silent crying, and Zedaph continued to reassure him as he gently brushed some hair from his face. "You know we'd never let anything happen to our favourite resident prankster, we'd never allow it. Xisuma checks the server audit logs meticulously, nothing would ever hurt us in our own home. We'll protect you, no matter what."

Grian's eyes were watery, and at this distance Zed could see how his irises were glowing slightly, just lke his freckles. "I'm safe here," He mumbled, and Zedaph nodded with a little smile as he gently moved his hand back up to stroke Grian's cheek, relieved when he closed his eyes and took a deeper breath. Grian let his hands rise to gently hold Zedaph's forearms and, after a moment, his eyes opened once more. They locked gazes.

…hesitantly, Zedaph moved one of his hands down to the nape of Grian's neck, trailing over his skin. He could see the flush rising to the other's cheeks, feel his own face getting warmer, but he kept his movements slow and calculated— if Grian was uncomfortable, he wanted to give him plenty of chances to pull away —as he leaned in and tilted his head. Both of them let their eyes flutter shut when Zed just barely allowed their lips to brush. Then Grian cupped Zedaph's face, pressing their lips together a little firmer.

It wasn't well coordinated, the smushing of their mouths was messy, and Zed could very clearly taste salt from their tears (which wasn't the nicest taste, admittedly) but at the same time, it was so very gentle; it wasn't rushed, it wasn't energizing, it was _calming_. Zedaph could feel his heartbeat slowing, and somehow, despite it being nothing but a kiss, he could sense the vulnerability in Grian's movements— perhaps it was the way his hand was trembling ever so slightly against his cheek, or the occasional jagged breath that remained from when he was crying— whatever the cause was, it felt intimate, and he trusted Grian with all his heart right now. He was sure the other felt the same way. This was love, Zedaph didn't need to think twice about it (it was reciprocated love, at least— he'd known what he felt for Grian for a while, now.)

They kept the kiss short, stopping after a few moments to lean against each other's foreheads as Zedaph gently threaded his fingers through the soft curls at the back of Grian's head. His other hand trailed down Grian's back to find the soft feathers at the base of his wings, gently stroking them. Grian shuddered, melting slightly and changing how his wing was positioned so Zedaph could reach it easier. Neither of them moved for a moment.

"You should tell the other hermits you're okay," Zedaph murmured, and Grian could feel his warm breath over his own lips. "I'm sure everyone's worried sick."

"Mm, yeah, I should," Grian agreed and reluctantly pulled away, checking his communicator. It hadn't been _that_ long since his death (although he was realizing now, with a pang of guilt, that he should've said something about how he was okay right away) but there were already multiple dozens of new messages— at least a hundred, definitely more —all of which had a strong sense of panic to them. Xisuma was currently reassuring Ren that Grian seemed to be alive, but that for whatever reason he couldn't teleport to him (another byproduct of the Watcher's doing.) He quickly started writing a reassurance that he was okay. "I'll meet up with Xisuma, I should probably explain everything to him first."

Zedaph hummed. "Can we meet up again later? Maybe a tour of your base would be nice."

Grian blinked before a smile spread across his cheeks and he nodded, pressing a gentle kiss to Zedaph's cheek before he stood up, willing his wings into nonexistence. His freckles stopped glowing, and Zedaph watched in awe as his eyes changed colours back to their regular shade of blue. "Of course, Zed." And he paused, adoration and love building up behind his sternum for the man sitting in front of him. He still couldn't believe they'd just _kissed._ "You'll be alright if I leave for a bit, right? I just don't want to worry anyone anymore than I already have."

He nodded, standing up beside him. "Yeah, no worries. I'll be fine."

Grian took a spare elytra from one of Zed's armour stands and borrowed some rockets before starting to head to the door (but not before taking a moment to gently ruffle Zedaph's hair.)

"I— I love you," Zedaph yelled just as Grian reached the entranceway and the builder paused for a moment, turning around; his face was actively flushing to a lovely shade of pink, Zed could see it from where he was standing, but he smiled through his flusteredness, calling out an "I love you too!" in return. Zedaph's heart swelled and he sat down on the little border fence around his central storage system as Grian walked out the front door (which was now missing, Zedaph couldn't help but notice with a hint of amusement.)

And sure, Zedaph would've liked to start off their relationship with less dying— but being able to spend the end of the evening once things had settled down with his _boyfriend_ (even just thinking of the word, knowing it was referring to Grian and that they were _dating,_ made his heart do a happy fluttery little thing) and enjoy a nice dinner together in his mansion before falling asleep in each other's arms on a soft mattress… he could look past the bad stuff.

(And sure, they both had nightmares, it was to be expected after something like that. Grian told Zedaph the reason he hadn't died in the void, about his past, and he was evidently a little broken over everything— but whatever things had happened in the past and whatever things would happen in the future, there was no doubt that they would get through it. They'd get through it _together._ )

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for making it to the end!!! hope you enjoyed reading and have a wonderful morning/evening/night!


End file.
